TWO Laughs At The Cancellation of ‘Ex-Gay Pride Month’

Truth Wins Out laughed today at the cancellation of “Ex-Gay Pride Month 2013” by the newly formed group, Voice of the Voiceless (VOV), which announced it was putting the kybosh on a fancy gala it had planned with the Family Research Council on July 31st. The event had sought to portray “ex-gays” as victims and had invited Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-MN, and other members of Congress to attend the benefit.

“There was never going to be an actual ‘Ex-gay Pride Month’ because ex-gays are as rare as the Dodo bird,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “They simply could not find real ‘ex-gays’ to participate and had to cancel to save face. This was nothing but a desperate publicity stunt intended to revive a failing industry that has repeatedly embarrassed anti-gay organizations.”

In response to VOV, Truth Wins Out had declared July “Ex-Gay Survivor Pride Month,” to highlight those who had overcome harmful programs that aimed to change their sexual orientation. TWO had lined up several speakers for a press conference in Washington, DC on the 31st. The organization will discuss whether it still plans to hold its event, considering the gala it was protesting never got off the ground.

VOV’s Christopher Doyle offered unsubstantiated charges of “anti-ex-gay extremism” as his reason for terminating the much-ballyhooed event. According to Doyle:

“Due to some anti-ex-gay extremism that has occurred since we first announced Ex-Gay Pride 2013, the July 31 Lobbying Day on Capitol Hill and Evening Dinner/Reception at the Family Research Council has had to be moved and postponed to an undisclosed location in September. The harassment has caused several security threats which has forced us to change plans, and that is unfortunate.

“We challenge Doyle to come forward and release the names of LGBT activists and organizations that have allegedly jeopardized his organization’s security,” said TWO’s Besen. “Until concrete allegations are made, we can only assume Dole is making an excuse for his organization’s abject failure to produce a viable Ex-Gay Pride Month event. ”

Doyle is downgrading his effort and rebranding it “Ex-Gay Awareness Month.” This way, he can pretend there are legions of so-called ex-gays in press releases, without actually proving they truly exist. According to Doyle:

“…We believe it is necessary not only to hold events in July for Ex-Gay Pride, but also to declare September as the First Annual Ex-Gay Awareness Month. Ex-Gay Awareness Month in September will be a time to reflect on the discrimination and marginalization that former homosexuals and ex-gays experience in the public at large. It will also provide some much needed exposure to students in secondary schools and colleges across the country to learn about the plights, challenges, and tribulations facing ex-gays in our culture.”

The VOV event was intended to revive the failing “ex-gay” industry and distract people from the disastrous year 2013 has been for such programs. This has included the closing of Exodus International and the group’s former poster boy, John Paulk, coming out.

In 1998, The Family Research Council was one of fifteen anti-gay organizations to sponsor the Truth in Love campaign, which touted “ex-gays” in full-page newspaper and television ads. Besen photographed one of the campaign’s poster boys, John Paulk, in a DC gay bar in 2000. On April 24, 2013, Paulk apologized to the LGBT community and renounced the “ex-gay” myth saying: “Today, I do not consider myself ‘ex-gay’ and I no longer support or promote the movement.”

A second FRC and Liberty Counsel poster boy from the 1998 campaign, Michael Johnston, had what anti-gay activists called a “moral fall” in 2003. Johnston moved to a Kentucky sex-addiction facility after Besen and Virginia attorney Michael Hamar discovered that the ex-gay leader was having unprotected sex in motel rooms with men he met on the Internet.

“Ex-Gay Pride month reminded me of a publicity stunt we have seen before,” remarked Besen. “Prior to being disgraced, Michael Johnston founded National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day to mock the LGBT annual event, National Coming Out Day. We see how well that worked out for them.”

The two new “ex-gay” organizations, Voice of the Voiceless and Equality and Justice for All (the lobbying arm) are front groups for the International Healing Foundation, a for-profit therapy center founded by Richard Cohen, a “sexual reorientation life coach,” who was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association in 2003 for multiple ethics violations. He is known for his alarming fits of anger and bizarre techniques that are widely mocked on the Internet and in the media. This includes having clients sit on his lap while he caresses them, or having them smash a pillow with a tennis racket while irately screaming the name of a parent.

Prior to founding the International Healing Foundation, Cohen was a member of the Moonies, where he met his wife in a mass marriage ceremony. After leaving the Moonies, Cohen joined the Wesleyan Community Church, a cult on Vashon Island, Washington, that practiced nude therapy in church.

Because of Cohen’s shady and disreputable past he has installed his deputy, Christopher Doyle, to be the face of these organizations. However, Doyle has ethical issues of his own. In a testimony he wrote for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) he spoke of a disturbing boyhood experience:

“I tried to have sex with the little girls that my mother watched in her daycare, and eventually, one of the girls told her parents what I was doing. The shame that was placed on me by my parents was more than I could bear. Rather than rescue me, teach me, and put me in counseling, the ‘bad boy’ was left alone to deal with all of this shame.”

Doyle has steadfastly refused to reveal the age of the little girls in question or what sexual acts he tried to perform on them. When confronted by Besen in June at the New Jersey Assembly cafeteria, Doyle responded that he hasn’t come clean because, “you would use it against me. You would try to harm me.”

“It is stunning that FRC, a group that claims to support families, would get in bed with disreputable figures such as Richard Cohen and Christopher Doyle,” said TWO’s Besen. “I think this partnership is a mark of desperation and highlights the failure of anti-gay organizations to convince Americans that it is possible to pray away the gay.”

The “ex-gay” industry appears to be a lost cause. A Newsweek poll in the summer of 1998 showed that 56% of the general public believed that homosexuals could become heterosexuals through therapy. Compare this to a March 2013 ABC News poll that showed just 24 percent of Americans see homosexuality as a choice.

Truth Wins Out is a nonprofit organization that fights anti-LGBT extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

About the Author

Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

32 Comments

John PatrickJuly 15, 2013 at 10:13 am -

They cancelled “Ex-Gay Pride Month” in July because of alleged “harassment,” so they are going to have an “Ex-Gay Awareness Month” in September. What will happen when their September event is a bust? Will they schedule an “Ex-Gay Halloween Event” in October, to protect the identities of whoever shows up? Then when that is a fail…..

One need only look at the LGBT people who refuse to be silent in Russia and other repressive countries in the world, to see what real courage and pride in the face of extreme harassment look like. Christopher Doyle and his kind are charlatans and cowards.

Good point John. And after the Halloween event is a flop, they can move it to Thanksgiving. And then Christmas. And then Easter.

While LGBT people are the group most likely to be victims of hate crimes, there are no recorded hate crimes against so-called “ex-gays.”

Christopher “Snake Oil” Doyle’s alleged martyrs are a phony as his cure for homosexuality. The Attorney General ought to investigate such clown for corruption and consumer fraud.

Bose in St. Peter MNJuly 15, 2013 at 10:50 am -

Reasonable people need to question whether this was ever anything more than a poorly executed pipe dream.

Publicity included that the gala dinner would happen at the FRC, never clearly stating that FRC was sponsoring or promoting. No FRC logos were used, no FRC staffers were included among speakers. I couldn’t find any overlap, even between FRC leaders or staff and the VOV’s list of founders and leaders.

I spent an hour a few days ago looking for any signs that FRC was mentioning the ex-gay month or the “gala” dinner, and found nothing at the FRC site, nothing anywhere else that tied Tony Perkins with any of it.

It strikes me as possible that Doyle and others at VOV may have gotten some conditional, preliminary affirmation from a lower-level FRC staffer and run with it. When it got none of its hoped-for speakers and nobody changing summer vacation plans to buy plane tickets to DC, the conditional support evaporated and the “scary” excuses were made.

DanielJuly 15, 2013 at 11:09 am -

Instead of “Voice of the Voiceless” the group should be called “Voice of the Nonexistent.

EmmaJuly 15, 2013 at 4:35 pm -

Voices of the Fictional perhaps?

Bill SJuly 15, 2013 at 9:26 pm -

Voices Inside Doyle’s Head.

RainbowPhoenixJuly 15, 2013 at 11:14 am -

Just when you think these tools can’t get any more pathetic.

(lower case) emmaJuly 15, 2013 at 11:45 am -

“plights, challenges, and tribulations facing “ex-gays” in our culture”
…I just threw up in my mouth a little.

JessicaJuly 15, 2013 at 11:47 am -

I knew this ‘ex-gay’ month would never happen because they could not attract the necessary attention needed to get off the ground.
Anyone with half a working brain knows that the ‘ex-gay movement’ is a made up group. Not straight but ‘ex-gay’.
Even those groups with ‘Family’ in the title and thrive on fake persecution are going to look funny at a group who should id as straight yet call themselves ‘ex-gay’ just to attract abuse for no real reason.
After all, even the fervently anti LGBT groups know that LGBT activists are not threatening straights with violence if they meet together and talk about how superior it is being straight.
Plus the name Voice of the Voiceless is already an Animal Rights group name and an Iranian freedom group name.
Even those with the cheek of the devil wouldn’t put ‘ex-gays’ in the same category as abused animals and victims of dictatorships.
Yet again, well done, Mr Besen and TWO. And I back TWO’s request that the ‘ex-gays’ name the ‘LGBT activists’ threatening them.
And when are P-FOX going to ask Christopher Doyle, as Mr Besen did, what were the extent of his activities against little girls?

Regan DuCasseJuly 15, 2013 at 12:18 pm -

So Doyle is possibly a child molester?
But he’s whining about the guilt and shame of doing what he did? As if he’s the victim of unfair judgement? Well, he’s admitted to abusing children, but never OWNED it.
Big difference.
And now this loser is further smearing other people for his failures of character?
I truly cannot stand people like that.
What DOES it say about a person who is LUCKY he’s being ignored, and yet complains because no one actually gives a crap about him?

Bose in St. Peter MNJuly 15, 2013 at 12:47 pm -

Update to my previous thought: “It strikes me as possible that Doyle and others at VOV may have gotten some conditional, preliminary affirmation from a lower-level FRC staffer and run with it.”

I had forgotten that Josh Duggar is the newly-hired ED of FRC Action, and FRC-A was named as the host of the “gala”. So, the possibility remains that Duggar jumped at the chance to make a splash in his first weeks in DC by supporting anti-gay stuff that plays well in Arkansas.

Older hands at FRC, less enamored with the plan, didn’t get wind of it until FRC-A’s name was publicly attached as a host. At that point, they want to avoid either confirming or denying their involvement in a “gala” that just isn’t viable. But, it’s easy enough for FRC staff to whisper to the staffs of supposed headliners Bachmann and Huelskamp that schedules need not be rearranged.

In that scenario, Josh Duggar is disappointed about being chastised (it had seemed his role as ED for FRC-A was more independent, free from being chastised or spanked by Tony Perkins) and FRC is happy to issue the edict guidance to Doyle/VOV that FRC’s name will not appear in any explanation of the cancellation change in plans.

Paul McJuly 15, 2013 at 1:20 pm -

It seems to me that there are no real ‘ex-gays’. We have the evidence thanks to TWO and others.

But there are a number of men and some women, who have had bad things happen to them. Instead of looking for love, they sought sex, maybe for reasons beyond their conscious control. Over the last decade or more, we see a serious of addicts, liars, the unfortunate, the (possibly ) abused, the exploited, the weak, the blind, making claims about being ex-gay, the power of God in their lives, the efficacy of reparative therapy blah blah blah.

There is a supreme irony, that these people really do need therapy, either gay affirmative therapy or therapy for deep-seated existential questions about who they are and what they have become, what they could be, where it all went wrong.

What they are not is ‘ex-gay’, ‘post-gay’ or ‘not gay’. I could respect the word asexual more than any of those compound syllogisms that are designed to insult and demean other humans.

What a hopeless shower of people, a messed-up caucus of the mis-informed, trying to make their way in the world through the trampling of the dignity of others, meanwhile making a holy mess of their own underfoot.

I really feel sorry for them…. for the harm they do to themselves. But I have no mercy whatsoever for the harm they do to others.

For people like Nicolosi, just plain contempt will do.

SteveJuly 15, 2013 at 1:37 pm -

I really hope you continue with the plans for Ex-Gay Survivor Pride Month/Events. Those are the stories that really need to be shared/heard.

GianniJuly 15, 2013 at 1:53 pm -

I just don’t get it: if you are “ex-gay”, that means that you were gay and now you are not which would mean you are straight and, consequently, you fit right in with the majority orientation in this society and receive all the blessings and benefits of belonging to that. Where would all the harassment come from? Certainly not the “majority” ; they would welcome you as one of their own. Besides, who would know you were formerly “one of them” if you didn’t blow your own horn about it? AND why would any gay person harass you since you didn’t want to belong the p**s-a*s pansy club anyway? You’ve achieved what all us fags are supposed to want – to belong to that loving, caring, welcoming majority of straight people. Well, keep sending him money, fools, he needs it to keep dreaming up these awful incidents of harassment.

John PatrickJuly 15, 2013 at 4:23 pm -

Gianni, what you write makes too much sense. Christopher Doyle isn’t very good at handling sense.

Poor Chris “Snake Oil” Doyle. His lemon of a clown car never even made it off the used car lot. Bless his heart. Even FRC doesn’t truly believe in the crap he’s peddling.

Dave_62July 15, 2013 at 2:28 pm -

Beating a dead horse or it’s too late to use the defibrillator!

BernieJuly 15, 2013 at 7:03 pm -

Oh, how I hate laughing over other’s misfortunes, but it so much fun! I could not stop laughing hysterically yesterday when I read that the ex gay pride day was being postponed because those mean old gay people are so mean and violent……My original prediction was: 2 1/2 people will show up to ex gay pride day…….and now in September if it happens, they will get 6 1/2 people……still can’t stop laughing my a*s off……….thanks for the belly busters…………..

(lower case) emmaJuly 15, 2013 at 8:00 pm -

so barely suppressed giggles now count as threats?

PhilJuly 16, 2013 at 12:16 am -

“…Doyle responded that he hasn’t come clean because, “you would use it against me. You would try to harm me.”

So this would-be “Mr. Clean” isn’t so clean after all (pun intended!).

GusPJuly 16, 2013 at 2:31 pm -

The kick-off video for the cancelled July Ex-Gay Pride Month 2013 is pathetic and sad–and I’m trying to nice here.

To the well-informed, or just intelligently competent, it’s obvious that a Grand Total of two (2) individuals showed up for the “gala” event: the organizer Christopher Doyle himself, and a former drag queen who needs real therapy for serious issues due to years of over-indulgent partying, a behavior that’s clearly not exclusive to gay people. Further, Doyle seems to be trying to co-opt the Fourth-of-July celebration tents on the National Mall to give his video a festive looking backdrop, albeit from an oddly distant perspective. Even worse, the hapless random interviewees that Doyle dubiously scrapes together are clearly unaware of Doyle’s intentions, let alone his non-event’s existence.

To the gullible, both of them will be disappointed by the lackluster presentation and the pervasive lack of interest and awareness of the event that this nervous guy with the confusing t-shirt is selling.

I know what it’s like to put together a big event, so I sympathize and am honestly embarrassed for Doyle. I truly hope he learns from this experience, especially the lesson that a lie is still a lie no matter how much you want others to believe in it. I wish Doyle would either wake up from his self-delusion, or give up trying to sell such obvious nonsense.

Here’s the video to judge for yourself if you wish: YouTube: Ex-Gay Pride 2013Warning!: Extreme willpower may be required to view the video through the very end.

Preston WardJuly 23, 2013 at 6:50 pm -

When I see that pic of Richard Cohen I get scared. The contempt and hatred that bleed from his eyes tell me that he’s an evil sociopath.

Get to Know Us

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights the "ex-gay" myth and antigay religious extremism.

TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes wrongdoing. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for truth, integrity, and equality for sexual minorities.